


there were no church bells (just the light of an arc reactor)

by amaresu



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Community: trope_bingo, F/M, Gen, Repulsed Asexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 20:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaresu/pseuds/amaresu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy never thought she'd get married.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there were no church bells (just the light of an arc reactor)

“So, just between us girls, how did he propose?” Jessie Nichols said as she leaned in and Darcy kept herself from pointing out that they were on live television on the most popular morning show in America and absolutely nothing in this interview was between just them. Instead she plastered a bright smile on her face, looked down at the ring on her finger just like Natasha had prepped her, and went into the carefully prepared speech. A speech that didn't involve any mention of Tony Stark, drugging, waking up in a suite of the Luxor hotel that she was relatively certain you needed to be a billionaire to even know it existed, or Nick Fury staring down at her with vast disappointment. 

The carefully prepared speech was very romantic (according to Jane) and held hints of a careful secret affair guaranteed to play on the hearts of Americans (according to Natasha and Clint). “And then Tony found out,” she concluded with a small shrug and a smile meant to convey that the rest was history. She absolutely did not mention his special blend of Asgardian mead and spices which made anyone who drank it susceptible to even the most joking of suggestions. In Tony's defense he hadn't known it would do that, he'd just wanted to get Steve drunk for a change. It didn't change the fact that he'd flown them to Las Vegas for a wedding after making them drink the stuff and waxing poetically about how they should get married.

“We all know what happened after that,” Jessie gave her what Darcy was certain was supposed to be a conspiratorial grin and gestured behind them to the big screen currently showing a variety of selected images from the wedding. As much as she wanted to punch Tony in the face every time she saw those pictures, she had to admit that they were at least tasteful. And managed to hide the fact that she and Steve had been drugged out of their minds. 

Fuck Tony Stark and his inability to question why two people who weren't even dating were suddenly amendable to the idea of getting married. She hoped Pepper was still making him sleep on the couch and JARVIS was continuing to lock him out of his lab. She knew for a fact that Bruce was still refusing to do anything science related with him and would instead just gave him the saddest, most disappointed looks in the known universe. They were worse than the guilt ridden ones Thor kept giving her, even though she didn't blame him for giving Tony the mead. The whole fucking world knew about the wedding thanks to Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr before she was fully conscious enough to truly appreciate Fury's restraint in waiting for her and Steve to wake up naturally. Tony wasn't even supposed to be on social media. 

The rest of the interview went pretty much as they expected and Darcy was able to spew out the per-written answers just the way she'd practiced with Natasha. Never once mentioning how Captain America couldn't get a Vegas divorce to go with his Vegas marriage even though she wanted to scream into the camera how it was all a big lie to protect American sensibilities and ensure good PR for the Avengers. Instead she stayed composed and smiled and giggled and did everything she'd been trained to do in the interview. The only twist came right at the end when Jessie leaned forward in her 'just between you and me' pose and asked, “You don't have to say anything, but I think this is the question on most women's, and some men's, mind right now. How is Captain America in bed?”

Darcy just stared at her in horror because no, just no. She could only hope her feelings of disgust at the idea of actually having sex weren't showing or that they could be played off as embarrassment. The idea of doing that with Steve was almost enough to make her vomit, so she did the only thing she could do and muttered, “I'm sorry, I have to not be here,” before running off the stage. 

Luckily Jane, wonderful Jane, the best friend in the whole entire world, was waiting backstage and ushered her into the dressing room before anyone could stop them. She got the mike untangled from Darcy's clothing and turned off before throwing it back out the door and then very firmly pulled a chair in front of the door and sitting in it. She didn't say anything, just sat while Darcy paced and gave the occasional shudder. It was bad enough that the entire country already thought she was making like rabbits with Steve, but to be asked right out in the open. Jessie Nichols was officially sharing space in the Fucking People Who Can Go To Hell And Die file of Darcy's brain. Right next to Tony Stark for getting her into this mess.

After a few minutes she managed to calm down enough to take a bottle of water and sit on the floor against a wall, “Well fuck.”

“Yeah,” Jane replied and gave a small smile. “I don't think anyone thought she'd come right out and ask that.”

“Please don't remind me,” Darcy begged as she sipped her water. Everything about the situation sucked and not even having the memory of Nick Fury personally apologize to her was making her feel better. Probably because the apology came after telling her she wasn't going to be allowed to get a divorce for at least a year. 

Before Jane could attempt to say anything else a knock came on the door. It was the world's politest knock which meant it could only be one person. Jane looked at her for permission, which she gave, sighing, because there's no way she could refuse to let Steve into the dressing room after that interview. There were too many people watching their every move at the moment. Steve slipped in without opening the door any further than he absolutely had to and nodded in approval as Jane pushed the chair back in front of it. He looked around the room for a moment before perching on the edge of the dressing table, “The good news is Ms. Nichols is being torn apart on every news outlet following the interview as well as Twitter, apparently. Clint thinks we can use this to start laying ground work for the divorce. He thinks it'll be great for laying the foundation of your discomfort at being in the limelight.”

His smile was hopeful and Darcy chuckled painfully, “So I take it everyone is seeing my exit as being horrified about being asked...that.”

Steve nodded and looked like he wanted to ask something, but didn't think it would be polite and was thus keeping himself from saying anything. It was a look she'd become familiar with in the past few months as his pop culture teacher. Which almost made her mad at Pepper, but she kept her anger focused where it should be, on Tony. Pepper had offered her the job on Jane's recommendation; it paid pretty damn well and she got to put down a Stark Industries internship on her resume, but it had been the first step in getting her into this situation. She liked Steve, he was a good friend and stuck in this situation as much as she was, but she just couldn't take any of his entirely earnest questions right now, “Fuck Tony Stark. Fuck him with a rusty spoon. I hope he gets tetanus.”

The room was completely silent for several seconds after her outburst before Steve started laughing. Jane followed suit and soon the three of them were laughing in the slightly deranged way that happens when the options are to either laugh or cry. After they managed to calm down she wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at Steve, “Okay, give it to me. What's bothering your overly polite brain today?”

Steve sat up straight and started to fiddle with one of the makeup cases on the table, “Oh, it's nothing really. Don't worry about it.”

“Fuck that. I'm going to be married to you for the next year, at least, so spill.” Darcy gave him her best no nonsense look and almost smiled when Jane copied her posture. Jane didn't teach very often, but when she did she tolerated none of the usual student bullshit. 

Steve sighed and rubbed a hand down his face, “This is going to sound stupid. I just, well, I was wondering, why it was so horrible to think about sex with me.”

By the end of the question Steve was almost whispering and trying not to look like it bothered him at all and suddenly Darcy was reminded of the stories he'd told her about being Bucky's perpetual wingman who never got the girl. From his stories she somewhat suspected that there were more crazy threesomes happening in the 40's than history had led her to believe and Steve was always the one left without a partner. He may have beefed up because of the serum, but childhood issues stayed with you. She hadn't even been able to figure out her response when Jane asked, somewhat disbelievingly, “He doesn't know?”

Darcy dropped her head into her hands and moaned, “I haven't gotten to the human sexuality portion of the curriculum.”

“Oh,” Steve's voice sounded more upbeat, “Are you a lesbian?”

She raised her head and smiled at him because that was her best student ever, “No, although that would come with it's own set of problems. I'm asexual. Repulsed wtfromantic asexual to be exact.”

She watched with a small amount of amusement as Steve mouthed the words to himself before asking, “Asexual?”

“I don't experience sexual attraction. At all.” It was weird because she'd never had this conversation off line before. Jane had just nodded her head and continued on with their movie marathon before spending the night researching what the hell Darcy had been talking about. Because that was how Jane worked. Jane had told Erik and SHIELD had just known through their creepy SHIELD ways when they vetted her to work with Steve. “Repulsed means I'm actively grossed out by the idea of having sex. And the romantic spectrum works like the sexual spectrum, but for romantic inclinations. So you can have hetero, homo, bi, or aromantic and some other stuff inbetween which is where wtfromantic fits in, but I don't want to get into that mess of complications right now.”

Steve just blinked at her for a moment before he asked, tentatively, “It's okay to not want to have sex?”

She nodded at him and he smiled, slightly, before his whole posture seemed to straighten up. He mouthed the word to himself again, but this time there was a bit of happiness to it rather than confusion. Jane was the one that asked the question on both their minds, “Did we just witness a light bulb moment in real life?”

Darcy nodded and tried not to laugh, “I think we did. Steve?”

He'd been hanging out with Darcy long enough to know what she meant and he nodded at her, “I think I am. I just always thought it was because I was sick and then maybe the serum, but Dr. Erskine was dead and I didn't know who to ask.”

Once again they started laughing, but this time it was without the sharp edge of hysteria that had been there before. Eventually Jane moved to the floor to lay down in front of the chair still blocking the door, “Who wants to tell Tony?”

Darcy raised her hand as she fell over laughing at the thought. This would be awesome to shove in Tony Stark's face after all his protests about how they'd clearly both just been too shy to make a move and his _completely unintentional_ mind control drug was helping them out in the end. She was almost certain Tony had never even heard of asexuality before and she was going to make slides. Old school ones with a projector he couldn't hack and make him sit and listen to her lecture. JARVIS was on her side.

Besides she was pretty sure Iron Man couldn't get tetanus anyways.


End file.
